Tag Archives: fear to change

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
Frank Herbert

Then end of the year is approaching quickly, what changes have you made this past year that you planned on making at the beginning of the year. Did you live your year the same way you started it? Perhaps you started with big goals and those slowly melted away and the year suddenly disappeared.

Often times what I hear is, “I’ll start tomorrow”, “I’ll start losing weight”, “I’ll start looking for a better job”, “I’ll start going to school”, “I’ll start _________ tomorrow”. Tomorrow never gets here, it is always a day away. The delay becomes a story, a story about what might happen when. There is another story that is playing at the same time. The story of fear, the story of delaying until the threshold of fear can be breached.

You’ve heard that story, most everyone has at some point in their lives. It is a disabling story that results in living the way that is the same as it was yesterday. You will live your next year the same way you are living today unless you take the steps to transform your life.

The question to ask, “is the dream worth it to me?” Is that dream of yours important. Is losing weight really important to you? Is finding a career worthy of you worth it to you? Is starting a new business really that important for you? Is taking that special vacation really that important to you?

What would make you feel more alive? What would feeling alive look like to you?

As Mandela put it: “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

“Don’t you long for something different to happen, something so exciting and new it carries you along with it like a great tide, something that lets your life blaze and burn so the whole world can see it?” Juliet Marillier

For many people the idea of change is terrifying and change is what leads to growth and experiencing life fully. What most people don’t realize is that the mind and the body can’t tell the difference between fear and excitement. The same emotions and the same feelings are experienced by both fear and excitement. How do you know which is which?

Remember the first day of school, that very first day that you realized that you were going to be doing something very different. Maybe you were waiting for a bus to pick you up or perhaps you had to walk a few blocks to school. This was the very first day you would be all alone (or at least you felt that way). The reason not to go to school might have been “I don’t know anyone”, “I don’t have any friends” … or something else. There is a first day of school story that most people know and can still remember. Was it excitement or fear?

That moment when the doors opened on that big yellow bus for your first time was a life defining moment. That first big step up, and then the next and the next and then it was finding a seat. All the faces were new and you might have been a little afraid or very excited but you didn’t know the difference. You did know that your heart was beating faster and that the nerves weren’t very calm.

The first time you rode your bike may have been about the fear of falling and the exhilaration of making the first few turns of the pedal without anyone holding you up. It wasn’t until you realized that you were riding without any help that you crashed but in that moment that moment of freedom you were excited and saying “Look at me, I am riding my bike!”. It was exciting wasn’t it?

Think about other “firsts” in your life. What was it fear or excitement. Was it the excitement of doing something for the first time? The second time that experience wasn’t so vivid and fresh and the third, fourth and fifth were less exciting than that very first time.

The very first plane ride was exciting. The very first bus ride was exciting. The very first day of school was exciting. It was like stepping in to a whole new world and over time that excitement turned into a routine and you became an expert. An expert at riding the bus, an expert at going to school, an expert at riding the bike and an expert at each thing that you had repeated experience in and it just became something normal didn’t it?

For many people the fear of speaking in front of a large audience is debilitating, but is it really fear or is it excitement. Is it really about the excitement of doing something new and different or is there some real threat about speaking in front of an audience of people. What is the worst that could happen as a speaker? Is it a real fear? Some people would say, “I might look bad”, or “I might sound stupid”, or “I might not look right”, whatever that is, it is really not about speaking it is about what others might think. Is it fear or excitement?

What do you think? When you try something new is it fear or excitement? Think about it the next time you try something new.

“It was an image Melody would never forget. Or was it the emotions the image conjured – hope, excitement, and fear of the unknown, all three tightly braided together, creating a fourth emotion that was impossible to define. She was getting a second chance at happiness and it tickled like swallowing fifty fuzzy caterpillars.” Lisi Harrison (Monster High)